


Socalyalcon VII: The Field Trip

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Chaptered, F/M, Field Trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: “Don’t be nice to me, Jessica. You and I both know what happened the last time we were co-chaperones on a field trip.”AU.*ON HIATUS*





	1. ONE.

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO, MY SWEET ROOMFRIENDS! I'M BACK!!
> 
> Just as I think to myself I'm all out of fic ideas for good, I have nothing left to contribute, I'm THE WORST, I come across a random prompt on Google. I typed something like, "nick/jess prompt au fun tension". I was desperate to write something for you (and for myself). 
> 
> This little baby is an AU where everyone works at Coolidge Middle School, and the prompt wanted a fic about: **Nick and Jess going on a work-related trip together-- but there's a catch! They can't stand each other. Also, shenanigans.** Obviously I had to write it, but I'm putting my own spin on it, and it's going to be a multi-chapter (my second one, woo-hoo!) and I can't wait to share the magic with all of you. Oh, and the rating will probably change to **M** within the next few chapters, just a heads up.
> 
> If you like it, let me know! Your feedback makes me the happiest fic writer ever. :D
> 
> Psst, if you like this, read my first multi-chapter [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6164428/chapters/14124322) while you wait for updates!

When he looks at the chaperone list, he does a double take.

“Who’s –”, and he leans in and does this annoying squinting thing with his eyes as if he’s an eighty-year-old who just went blind in one eye, “ _Jessica_?”

“If you paid any attention to… well… anything, you’d know ‘Jess’ is short for Jessica. Dipshit.”

“You’re the dipshit, Day. You hung Knitting Club posters all over my locker room yesterday. Like, a hundred of ‘em.”

“Good. The football boys should learn daintiness. Knitting is spiritually invigorating; more so than getting kicked in the nuts Monday through Friday.”

“We have games on the weekends, too, so uh, you forgot a few days. Anyway. Do you know how long those took me to rip up? I even broke a nail.”

“Oh, boo-hoo, Miller. Why are you allowed to go on this trip anyway? You’re a gym teacher.”

“And you’re a weirdo who makes up songs about photo-psychic-ness.”

Jess cringes at his failed pronunciation of ‘photosynthesis’ and levels her hand at him. “Thank God you never make me question, ‘Hey, why does Nick Miller teach gym, again? He’s kind of smart.’”

“Look, I could sit here and bitch at you all day for your stupid Knitting Club, but I won’t.” He rolls up the sleeves of his flannel and rips the clipboard off of the wall of the teacher’s lounge. Jess is not so sure it was supposed to be ripped off of the wall.

He sets his pointer finger down onto the paper and goes, “Look”, shoving it in Jess’s face. “We’re ‘Trip Buddies’, which means we’re co-chaperones, which means we have to share a hotel room, which means I hope there’s twin beds.”

“Oh, there will be,” Jess says with a bitter laugh. “I’ll pack us neck pillows to help alleviate some of that one-and-a-half star hotel neck pain.”

“Don’t be nice to me, Jessica. You and I both know what happened the last time we were co-chaperones on a field trip.”

“We do?”

Nick shakes his head and slams the clipboard down onto one of the empty tables, making Mr. Bishop and Ms. Nelson stop their canoodling in the corner – _We all see you, we all know you had sex in the teacher’s lounge in 2014, and we don’t care that you guys are both cat people._

“Are you really going to make me relive The Great Bee Colony of 2015?” Nick asks, narrowing his eyes at Jess.

“You only got stung thirty-four times. Relax.”

“Say that number to me with a smile on your face again and I will throw your damn mattress into the river on this field trip.”

“It’s actually a lake we're visiting, soooo…”, she says smugly, taking a sip of her coffee, _five sugars_ , smiling at Nick’s miserable little frown.

“Whatever,” he says at the sound of the first period bell. “I gotta go teach a bunch of seventh graders not to hit each other in the face with a volleyball. See ya around, _Jessica_.”

“Ew, don’t say my name like that, _Miller_. Have fun sweating in your flannel. You _do_ know it’s still technically summer, right?”

He winks at her. “‘Summer’ is over the second I come back to this hell hole and I’m forced to deal with a teacher who sings about everything.”

“ _You need to cheer uuuuup, Mister Gym Teacher_ ,” she sings as he walks away, and she not-so-professionally (sorry, Principal Foster) throws up her middle finger back at Nick after he walks away with his up at her.

—

Ms. Parekh eats lunch with Jess almost every day in the library, because no other teachers go in there and they can whisper-gossip about the entire Coolidge staff without anyone important hearing.

Cece and Jess got the jobs together. Well, Jess got the job by nagging Principal Foster to ‘ _Please, please,_ please _hire me, I really need a reason to leave the house with a bra on again – I’m sorry, was that inappropriate? We have quite the age difference._ ’, and Cece got the job three years later, after a failed modeling career, with the perfect Jessica Day Reference, of course.

Jess teaches English and science, because they’re understaffed as hell and the science department ‘ _Could use someone quirky, someone who might pull a guitar out in the middle of class to sing about the periodic table_ ’. (Principal Foster’s words, after the whole bra thing.)

Cece teaches Spanish. Irony: She didn’t speak Spanish before she had this job, but she’s really good at winging it.

“So,” Cece says, pressing her lips together, “I saw your name on the chaperone list.”

“Ugh. Don’t start. I’m paired with Mr. Dodgeball and Sweaty Gym Socks again.”

“Hey, those kids are the dirty ones. Nick is kind of scrapped out too, but he showers. We kissed at the Christmas party last year, remember?”

Jess rolls her eyes. “You waited until Schmidt was looking in your direction and missed his lips. You got eggnog all over his chin.”

Cece turns red at the Schmidt mention, because that’s… well… a mess. Cece and Mr. Schmidt, the guidance counselor, used to hook up, then they didn’t, and then Cece hooked up with that super-young student teacher, Buster, but only to make Schmidt jealous, and then Schmidt dated some local politician, Fawn Moscato, who thought she was an A-lister for giving speeches in the auditorium at the school, and then they hooked up once more after that, and now they don’t even sit on the same _side_ of the teacher’s lounge.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s not like _you_ pay any attention to him, and you should. He’s cute!”

“Shut up, Cece. You know my rule. I’m never dating a teacher again.”

Cece laughs and shakes her head. “Spencer wasn’t a ‘teacher’, Jess. He taught _gardening_ for one semester and got fired for pissing on the kid’s plants. It doesn’t count.”

“It does when you’re me. And hey, you should follow my rule too, Cecelia. Try not screwing the guidance counselor for a month, huh?”

Cece sticks her fork dramatically into a piece of lettuce in her salad container and takes a breath. “We’re not even talking. He hasn’t spoken to me since _June_.”

“Whoa.” Jess widens her eyes and sets down her (fourth) coffee.

Cece waves her hand like it’s no big deal. “Fuck him. I told him I just did that twenty-year-old student teacher to piss him off but he still went and dated the Coolidge version of Sarah Palin, anyways.”

“Fawn?”, Jess asks. “I actually liked her. We were partners for Field Day last year.”

“I remember,” says Cece. “She hit you in the shin with a golf club because you beat her in the relay.”

“Whatever,” Jess says with a shrug. “Let me guess, your co-chaperone is Schmidt.”

“Not even. I’m stuck with Aly Nelson.”

“The nurse? Have fun. I hear she’s a little high-strung.”

Cece presses her lips together. “She’s alright. She helped me bug Schmidt’s office with all of these like, high-tech nanny cams last fall.”

Jess raises her eyebrows and just looks at Cece for a second. “Um. Illegal and crazy. I’m praying you bond with someone new on this trip. What about Ernie?”

Ernie is the health teacher, and Jess keeps forgetting Cece and Ernie already… uh… bonded.

“We made out after Parent-Teacher Night two years ago and it was awful, remember? Oh, and he’s dating like, three other teachers.”

Jess remembers now, and she shakes her head at her mess of a friend, silently thanking herself for not getting past first base with anyone she calls ‘Mr.’ under the roof of a school. “The No-Teacher Rule. Try it.”

—

Nick storms into her classroom the next day and slams down a piece of paper onto her desk, right on top of her beautifully crafted stick figure drawing of literature’s brightest minds.

“Hey, you’re covering my colored pencil Hemingway.”

“Please,” Nick grunts, “I could write better than Hemingway.” Jess looks skeptical ( _duh_ ) but she lets Nick continue. “Day, what’s your problem? You gave my kid academic probation? He’s a sixth-grader!”

“A sixth-grader who forgot to turn in his essay on Global Warming.”

“Well now he can’t play football for six weeks and he’s the best goddamn kid I’ve got. Thanks.”

“He can’t be that great. He can't even spell 'volcano',” she shrugs, not a sorry bone in her body. Nathaniel deserved academic probation; he had the entire summer to bullshit a mediocre essay like the rest of her kids did.

“You know what…” He cuts himself off, his hands in two, angry little fists. Jess is trying not to laugh at the way he’s overreacting right now. “See you on the trip. Hope you’re ready to spend six miserable days at Socalyalcon V-I-I with me.”

“You don’t say ‘V-I-I’, it’s _seven_ , you dummy.”

—

Principal Foster calls a meeting the day before the trip in the teacher’s lounge.

He claps his hands together and talks about the fact that roleplaying isn’t required at Socalyalcon, but _encouraged_. “I also feel compelled to remind you that I can’t stop any of you from fornicating in your hotel rooms, but I will do my best to try. Um, Ms. Parekh? Ms. Nelson? As my only female-female co-chaperone pairing, I will exclude you from this. Or include you. I wouldn’t mind seeing you fornicate.”

“You still have a job at this school _how_?” Aly asks, her eyes narrowed at him. 

Foster pretends she's not even there and continues. "The twin beds are  _very_ narrow, so even if you tried your hardest, getting two people on there is a struggle. There'd be a lot of bumping, and nudging, and knees in places you didn't think knees could go."

Jess cringes at Foster's... visual description and looks for her co-chaperone, who isn't even paying attention. He's doodling in some notebook, probably writing a death note to her for suspending Nathan from sports for six weeks. Whatever. Global Warming isn't  _that_ hard to Google.

"Any questions?" Foster asks at the end of his spheel. 

"I have one," Ernie, the health teacher, raises his hand. "How many condoms am I packin' for this shindig?"

Cece grunts, and Jess looks at her. She mouths the word, ' _Pig_ ', and Jess doesn't have the guts to tell Cece she's one of the girls who might end up skipping day one of Socalyalcon to break in those condoms with Ernie, so she just nods in agreement.

Foster waves his hand over at Ernie and shakes his head. "Just enough to teach the students about safe, responsible sex! Next? None? Okay! One... two... three...... SOCALYALCON!"

No one answers, and then Nick looks up from the notebook he's scribbling in. "NO ONE CAN SAY THAT WORD, MAN."

—

The next morning, the buses leave for Palm Springs at a very annoying time of 5:35 A.M. 

Jess squeezes in next to Cece and an already-sleeping Aly, and she sees Nick in the middle of Nathaniel (little shit was still allowed to go on the trip) and Schmidt, and they're all talking about ditching Socalyalcon for something cooler.

"Socalyalcon  _is_ cool!" Jess shouts over the seat in defense, a little too loud for 5:35 A.M, waking up Aly.

"You'll have nightmares about the word Socalyalcon after rooming with me for a week!" Nick shouts back.

"Oh, it's true," Schmidt chimes in. "Nicholas and I were roommates when we moved to LA after college, and let me just say, he definitely owns a laundry basket, but I'm not convinced he knows what they're for."

"Oh, shut up, Mr. Guidance Counselor," Cece intervenes, also a little too loudly for 5:35(6) A.M. "Here's some guidance: Try not being a prick the entire trip."

"I called you back, Cecelia! And I left a box of chocolates with your doorman -- the little whipped caramels, like you, but you were too busy dating one of your students!"

"OH MY -- A _STUDENT_?!" Principal Foster jumps up from his seat up front while the bus is in full motion, almost tipping over.

"Oh my God, Schmidt! No! A student teacher."

"I really need to implement better fornication rules," Foster says with a furrowed brow. "After this little trip,  _that's it_! Well, it's really none of my business who you choose to get frisky with, actually, so..."

"What's 'fornication', Miss Day?" Crystal, one of her science kids, makes a point to unbuckle herself from her seat and face all of her teachers.

"L-Let's just make them now!" Jess says, shouting (5:38 A.M., b-t-w) over everyone else. "Stay in your own damn twin beds,  _all of you_. Now enjoy your two-hour nap and don't say the 'S-E-X' thing in front of middle schoolers again."

"Too bad we just did. Like, a lot."

"Oh, cool it, Sweaty Gym Socks."

"What are you gonna do, sing at me if I don't?"

"Oh, the  _entire_ trip."

"Greaaaaat."

 


	2. TWO.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy everyone was so happy about this baby. So am I! Here's part two (orrrrr day one) of Socalyalcon! If you love it, don't forget to let me know! <3
> 
> Basically this chapter, in a nutshell, using my favorite quote from it: "Nick's trying not to check out her polka-dot mini-skirt and the shirt she's got paired up with it. It says: I PREFER MY PUNS INTENDED, and he fucking hates it."

They get to the hotel and there's already an itinerary on their nightstands. Jess's middle name is 'Itinerary' (no, okay, it's Christopher, but don't ask), and Nick sticks the gum he's chewing inside of the paper and crumbles it up, tossing it toward the garbage but missing. Psh, some gym teacher.

"So, what do you think we should take our group to, first? I'm thinking the Poetry Jam."

"I'm thinking, I'll stay here and catch up on some z's and you can go read that depressing crap to tweens who also think it's depressing crap."

"Miller,  _come on_. It's not that bad," she pleas, taking her itinerary from the nightstand by her twin bed and waving it in his face.

“Fine, but you don’t have to get _every_ book signed, okay?”

“Deal.”

—

Nick gets dragged to the poetry jam, and he whispers to one of the students twenty minutes into the thing. "Take a shot every time Miss Day cries during this crap we're calling 'creativity', huh?"

The student blinks at him twice and then goes, "Like a drink? It's  _noo_ _n,_ Mr. Miller."

He takes a deep breath and starts to evaluate his life, but a few seconds later he says fuck it, he'd rather be ten beers deep alone in the corner booth at The Griffin than listening to this shit.

Jess runs over to Nick and the rest of the misfits of their little bunch, her hands clapped together. "Destiny's poem is next!" Nick doesn't even know who Destiny is, so he looks at Jess with a shrug and goes, "...Cool?"

"It's called 'THEM', all caps, and it's about the bullies that decorated her locker with little candy penises last year. Take that bullies!", Jess chants with a fist pump.

"Hey." Nick nods in her direction, talking so low only Jess can hear. "This is really dumb, man."

"Then why did you sign up as a chaperone, idiot?"

"Because only six of my students decided to be smart and not attend this thing." He looks at her up and down and internally rolls his eyes at how one person can be so excited about seventh graders writing dark poetry and reciting it like... _in front of people_. "Do you know how hard playing a successful game of dodgeball is with six kids? They just beat the shit out of each other the whole time."

"Shh." Jess holds a finger to her lips and then pulls this tri-fold out of the pocket of her purse. "Socalyalcon Rule Seventy-Nine: No swearing on the grounds, especially during private readings such as: Poetry jams."

"It doesn't say that, Jess."

She pulls the pamphlet out of his reach when he tries to snatch it from her and puts it back into her purse. "Well it should!"

"Look, I'm gonna go hang at the adult-friendly part of Socalyalcon. The beverage tent. Hopefully someone spiked the seltzer."

Jess rolls her eyes. "Doubt it. You'll regret missing 'THEM', Nick!"

"Just tape it on your little camcorder," he teases, winking at her before walking away.

"I DON'T HAVE A _CAMCORDER_ , NICK! I HAVE AN IPHONE JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE!"

—

"This thing blows." He surprisingly found beer in the beverage tent. (Or it found him. Beer always seems to just... find him.) He takes a long swig and steps under the shade. It's gotta be at least ninety-five degrees out, and his jeans are sticking to him.

Schmidt notices this, so he takes a towel out of his backpack and starts blotting the little beads of sweat off of Nick's forehead. "Unacceptable," he says mid-blot, and Nick shoves him by the wrist and tells him to fuck off. "I'm not even going to  _start_  about the whole 'wearing street clothes to the Southern California Young Adult Literature Conference' thing. You look on the brink of homelessness."

"These jeans were twenty bucks, dude." 

"Ugh. You're disgusting."

Nick takes another long sip of beer and looks around at the place. Tons of students scattered around a bunch of tents filled with nonsense books the school library told them were good.

And note to Destiny: Definitely heard 'THEM' over the mic. Definitely wrote a better zombie novel in my freshman year of college on a  _napkin_ than... whatever that nonsense was.

"Look, maybe I'd complain about this thing less if --"

"Say it right, Nick.  _Southern California Young Adult_ \--"

"You're a prick." Another swig of beer. "Jess is crazy, okay? She somehow photocopied her itinerary after I threw mine out and highlighted the things she thought I'd benefit from on it. 'Spoken Word 101: Using Your Inner Voice(s)' is not my jam, and she's nuts for drawing stupid little stars around it."

"I think she's thoughtful," Schmidt says with a shrug. "Besides, be thankful someone with a vagina is paying attention to you at all. The only female interaction I've had on this entire trip was a Facebook message Fawn Moscato sent me this morning."

"Oh, hey, you hoppin' back inside that political nightmare again?"

Schmidt shakes his head and pulls out his phone, scrolling to the message. **"DON'T FORGET TO VOTE MOSCATO FOR CITY COUNCIL 2017. (Also, your penis did nothing for me. Just your weekly reminder.)** ", he reads out loud.

"What about Cece?", Nick asks. "She gets wet anytime you guys eat lunch in the teacher's lounge during the same period."

Schmidt sighs and tells Nick to forget that lost cause. "The sex was incredible, our kids would be beautifully exotic, she's the only woman I know who can pull off the color yellow, but no."

Just then, Jess finds Nick in his small, little, beer-filled corner and waves at him like a lunatic. "NICK, NICK!"

"What?" He grunts, setting down his beer. He doesn't think Jessica Day's ever had a beer in her life. She's too freakin' twirly. "If it's about another mediocre student writer: NO."

"It's - Okay, well, I just wanted to let you know that I helped Nathaniel write his first poem."

" _Grrrrreat_ , stealing my athletes and turning them into Mini Miss Day's. Awesome. What's it about?"

"Um." She bites her lip and waves him over, telling him to come a little closer because it's too inappropriate to say out loud.

"C'mon, Jess, middle schoolers know what sex is, don't let them fool you."

"It's actually about locking one of his teachers in a torture chamber for not letting him follow his dreams of being a creative mind, sooooo..."

"Screw you." Nick laughs at that after a few seconds, though, because it was the first semi-funny thing he's ever heard Jess say. "Wait, really?"

Jess lifts up Nathaniel's three-line poem on a Post-it note and goes, "No. It's about his dog. He's a real weirdo, that one."

 _Look who's talking_ , Nick thinks, trying not to check out her polka-dot mini-skirt and the shirt she's got paired up with it. It says:  **I PREFER MY PUNS INTENDED** , and he fucking hates it.

"Anyway. Enjoy your beer! Hi, Mr. Schmidt!"

"You're allowed to just call me 'Schmidt', Jess. We've been working together for years  _and_ you walked in on your best friend and I in the choir room once."

She gets red at that. "Yeah, underneath the piano, I remember. But I wish I didn't! See you guys at the Pun Pow-Wow in 15!"

—

Nick doesn't go to the Pun Pow-Wow.

He sits in the corner eating "Bookworm Cookies" from one of the tents. They're sugar cookies shaped like worms with green icing, and the worm is wearing freakin' glasses, and if Nick liked baking and effort, he'd call them cute or cool.

Cece grabs a Bookworm Cookie off of the tray and then sits down next to Nick on one of the benches. "'Sup?"

"Hating this. You?"

"The only thing I've read in the last three years was a Spanish textbook. Like, half of it. So... also hating this."

He laughs and takes a bite of his cookie, getting crumbs all over his twenty-dollar jeans. "Hey, is Jess always as annoying as she's been for the... How long have we been on this damn trip?"

"Like, eight hours, dude. And yeah, kind of, but she's also the best person on the planet, so if you call her annoying again I might have to throw you into the Pun Pow-Wow going on over there."

Nick widens his eyes and looks at the Pun Pow-Wow. Of course Jess is in the middle of it, reciting pun after pun after pun, a bunch of laughing kids (and Schmidt, always Schmidt) circling around her. "Your turn, Mr. Schmidt!", he hears her yell, and then Schmidt yells, "MY BATTERY HAD AN ALKALINE PROBLEM, SO IT WENT TO AA MEETINGS!", and Nick declares their friendship over after that one.

"I had sex with that guy," Cece says after looking at Nick's face of disgust. " _A lot_. Trust me, it's worse for me."

"Hey, why is Jess the best person on the planet?" He asks after they listen to another horrible pun by Schmidt -- ('I WONDERED WHY THE BASEBALL WAS GETTING BIGGER. THEN IT HIT ME!'). 

"Huh?"

Nick repeats his question, and Cece sets down her half-eaten cookie in her lap, not caring that she just got icing all over her shorts. "Because she's  _Jess_. She gives the biggest shit  _ever_."

"Um. Wait, are we talking about her pooping skills?"

Cece buries her head in her hands. "Horrible wording. Maybe I  _should_ pay attention to this reading crap. No, Nick, she just cares about everyone and everything  _way_ too much, even though it ruins her life sometimes. Like, her career, her relationships -- or lack of, she kinda sucks at 'em, but no more than anyone else I know."

Nick's kind of curious, although he doesn't know exactly why he cares to know so much about his annoying, polka-dot-wearing, poetry-loving roomie.

Cece knows Nick wants her to elaborate, so she does. "Jess got me this job, you know. I was a model booking like, three gigs a year. She told me she'd put in a good word for me, but she put in the  _best_ word. I had a phone interview a few hours later, and then I was employed the next day."

"I didn't know that," he says, nodding in interest. "I guess that's pretty cool. Do you know how I got _my_  job?"

"By flunking at whatever your first - maybe second - career choices were and being stuck with it?"

"Ding ding ding!" He points finger guns at her. "I went to law school, and then I tried being a writer, and I guess God told me to go fuck myself in those departments."

"Wait." Cece narrows her eyes. "A writer? Like, you wrote books?"

"Book. A book. It sucked. ' _Z is for Zombie_ '."

"A zombie book? Yeah, it definitely sucked."

"Well, I think I was just writing about the wrong things."

"Soooo... write about the right things?"

Nick bites down on his lip and nods at Cece. "I think I will. Thanks for the chat. You have cookie all over yourself, you slob person."

—

Jess has two glasses of rosé at dinner, which makes her chat even  _more_ about how monumental the Pun Pow-Wow was.

Schmidt laughs into his beer and taps onto his knee, cracking up at the memory of one of Jess's puns. "Right?! I'm truly sad for anyone who missed it.  _Especially_ those who spent time pretending Socalyalcon was a luncheon -  _Cecelia and Nicholas_."

"We had cookies and beer, my two favorite food groups. Shut up!" Nick defends.

All of the teachers drink a little (or a lot) more, eat complimentary lobster and steak, because apparently Coolidge doesn't have a budget?, and then follow the whole 'Lights Out' thing when it turns 9:00.

—

When they get back to the room, Nick expects Jess to be out like a light. One, because of all of the pink wine. Two, because she signed up for a 6:30 AM seminar on haikus tomorrow. Three, because she just looks like the kind of chick who loves an early bedtime.

She's not, though. Instead, she grabs the black notebook off of Nick's nightstand and flips it open. 

"Wait, this - This isn't my journal."

Nick realizes what she's holding and widens his eyes in horror. "Ohh, no, it's not, umm... Can I have -"

"Pepperwood and Knight?" She tilts her head, intrigued at the large print in black Sharpie marker on the first loose leaf page. "Is this you?"

"It's - No."

"It says 'By Nick Miller' on the bottom, though."

"Um. I guess it's me, yeah, okay, you got me."

"What's Pepperwood and Knight?  _Who's_ Pepperwood and Knight?"

He thinks fast - as fast as he can after three beers and a lobster dinner. "Just two authors I liked at the..." He stalls thinking of a tent she'd never visit. "Gore and Murder-Mystery tent."

"Oh." She sets his book back onto the nightstand and gives him this little half-smile. It's probably the rosé, or something. He tries not to stare at her too much, because she's drunk and he's tipsy and hotel rooms after a night after rosé and craft beer scream 'You two are  _definitely_ going to do it, even if you don't want to, even if you kind of can't stand each other's guts'. Or maybe that's just Nick. Jess is probably not thinking about sex at all; she's probably just happy about haikus. Who knows.

"I thought it was something you were writing, but then I remembered how angry you were about my horrible puns at the pow-wow, so."

"Yours weren't that bad," he assures her, rubbing his lips together. "Schmidt's though?"

Jess laughs and shuts off the lamp on her side. "He came in fourth place, so, yeah. He needs to step his pun game up."

Nick's heart is still beating fast even though his notebook is closed shut, unread, the words on the second page of loose leaf unknown to anyone who isn't him.

' **JESSICA KNIGHT MADE PEPPERWOOD'S UNIVERSE SPIN. HE JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHY YET.'**


	3. THREE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2, y'all! 
> 
> To everyone that's shown love to the last chapter: I wouldn't be sitting here writing this without your enthusiasm, without your passion for these awesome characters I love so much, without all of the nice things you say about my work. You make my world go 'round. 
> 
> I hope this chapter (and Schmidt's haiku, my favorite part to write) make your day the way you all make mine. :)

_' **JESSICA KNIGHT MADE PEPPERWOOD'S UNIVERSE SPIN. HE JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHY YET.'**_

...

He gets a few more paragraphs in after Jess falls asleep. Some bullshit about how Jessica Knight makes him forget about a hard day's work just by looking into his eyes, but then he scribbles it out and goes to sleep himself.

When he wakes up next, it's only 3 AM, which is what happens when someone is assigned a 9 o'clock bedtime and  _listens_ to it.

"Hey." He hears a whisper so faint he almost... well...  _faints_ , but it's just Jess, and she's wide awake too. "Sorry, did I scare you?"

"Scare me? No. Send me into cardiac arrest? Maybe." He's holding his heart dramatically and he pivots his whole body so he's facing her. She's got her feet dangling off of her twin bed, and he's sitting the same way. "I thought you'd be  _zonked_."

"I don't even know what a 'zonked' is."

"It's not a real word, I think. It just means like... tired."

"Oh." She presses her lips together and smiles (?) at Nick. "I woke up a half hour before you did. I can't sleep."

"Oh yeah? You have a wet dream about that dumb haiku class you signed up for?"

She sticks her tongue out at him and goes, "Maybe I did."

He lets out this long breath and doesn't share  _his_ past wet dreams with her, because a lot of them involve the teachers at their school, and Ms. Frizzle from  _The Magic School Bus_ , and one time he dreamt about Winston in a blonde wig (but he'll go to his  _grave_ with that one).

"I don't know. This trip is fun, and all, but sometimes when I drink - especially pink wine - I question like, my entire being. Do you ever do that?"

"Drink pink wine and think about shit?" He tilts his head and laughs. "Once, with Schmidt, but it was super weird and we promised we wouldn't bring it up again."

"I mean 'question your entire being', you dummy. Sometimes I feel like I'm not meant to be a teacher. I don't know."

Nick narrows his eyes at Jess. " _You_? Jess, when you Google 'teacher' and click on images, there's a bunch of chicks in big ass glasses and weird polka dot dresses that look  _just_ like you."

Her breath is staggered, and her eyes look sleepy. "Not what I meant. But then again, why am I trying to get all deep with the god damn gym teacher? Goodnight, Miller."

"Umm... good... night?" He figures he pissed her off, but he's also kind of offended, and he also wants to whip out his notebook and show her that gym teachers can be deep too, but then he'd just make a fool of himself because who else is Jessica Knight supposed to be, Cece? 

"But gym teachers can be deep too," he adds lowly when Jess tucks herself in, and she doesn't answer him.

—

Jess's alarm goes off a little late, and by the time she signs into "Haiku Zoo", it's already 6:38 AM and she's freaking out about missing the "'Ku Circle".

Nick is trudging along behind her, a little eye crust on the corner of his left eye, he forgot to brush his teeth,  _et cetera, et cetera_. 

"Yo." He nods at Cece, who also looks like she's been hit by a truck. "You got a breath mint?"

She reaches into her purse without hesitation or judgement, and Nick asks her if she forgot to brush too. "I don't remember. Whatever. Here."

"I don't wanna be here, either." He grabs the breath mint from Cece's hand and watches her pop four into her mouth. "Look, he  _always_ has to be first to share."

"'Socalyalcon' is Schmidt's middle name," Cece says with an eyeroll, watching Schmidt stroll up to the microphone with a smirk on his face and a notebook in his hands.

Jess finds Cece and Nick in the mix and puts her arms around both of them. "Such a beautiful morning, huh? Just 'ku'in' and having a ball."

Nick finds his fists curling at his side but decides to just keep quiet and nod, but Cece says, "Shove it. Where's the coffee, the itinerary said there'd be coffee."

"Winston knocked over the Hai-Brew cart," Jess says, of course not forgetting to include the haiku-themed name with it. "They have to go get more."

Just then, Schmidt clears his throat and grabs the microphone off of the stand. "Good morning, fellow 'Ku'ers."

A bunch of people chant, "'Ku! 'Ku! 'Ku!" back at him and he laughs. 

"I shouldn't, I can't, I'm shy, I -"

"YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE IS TO REMOVE ALL SHY PEOPLE FROM EXISTENCE, YOU TOLD ME!" Nick shouts, and Schmidt waves his hand at him like he's just a piece of fuzz in the mix of people.

The crowd eggs Schmidt on to read his 'Ku ( _ew_ ) and after a minute of nothing but blushing and laughing, he lifts his notebook into view and turns the pages a few times.

"Here it is. It's called: "CECELIA", and it's a good one."

Cece widens her eyes at looks and Nick and Jess before going, "Yeah, I'm gonna call it a... day. Bye!"

"Wait! You promised me you'd get breakfast with me at the Bookworm Brunch," Jess says, tugging Cece by her slender wrist and stopping her in her tracks back to her hotel room (or the hotel spa, let's be real).

"CECELIA..."

"Oh god."

"YOUR - SEX - WAS - LIKE - GOLD

YOU - OR - GA - SMED - SOME - TIMES - TOO

NOW - WE - DON'T - TALK - BYE"

He clears his throat and gets ready for the crowd of twelve year-old's to compliment his art, but instead only one girl in the audience, Wendy, raises her hand and goes, "My mom says my dad doesn't care if she orgasms. Is that what this haiku is about?"

Cece wants to march onto the stage and beat Schmidt with his own notebook, but she's also enjoying watching him choke up in front of a bunch of kids.

"Mr. Schmidt, I think we're done with 'Ku Korner' for today," Principal Foster says, trying to escort him off stage.

Schmidt grabs the microphone, though, and yells, "FIVE SYLLABLES, SEVEN SYLLABLES, FIVE SYLLABLES! _FIVE SYLLABLES, SEVEN SYLLABLES, FIVE SYLLABLES!_ "

"What a mess, man," Aly says, walking over to Cece and putting a hand on her shoulder. "You should marry him!"

"Shut up or I will put those very realistic looking Magic Reading Mice from the fairy tale booth in your bed while you're sleeping."

"I skipped that booth because  _Cinderella_ scares me, but also, you just spoiled your plan, Parekh." 

"She's right, Cece," Winston chimes in, because he's never more than five feet away from Aly. "Ain't no other man out here writing 'ku's about you, girl."

"That wasn't poetry, you dipshit, that was the diary entry of a fifteen year-old who thinks getting their first handjob is losing their virginity. He only embarrassed himself; I made him cum  _every. damn. time_."

Schmidt is banned from sharing any more haikus, and after him, only Crystal, one of the kids, shares this really lame one about finding a starfish on the beach.

—

Cece goes back for seconds by the bacon at Bookworm Brunch, and the only other person standing by the adult table is Schmidt, naturally.

He's cutting his mimosa with more orange juice, and she calls him a pussy. "For the haiku or the OJ?"

"Both." She reaches over him and grabs the champagne and doesn't make a mimosa with it. "You're an embarrassment."

"So are you. Everyone knows you hooked up with Ernie like, eight-point-five seconds after we broke up."

Cece cackles. "Why so specific? And please. Everyone knows you broke up with me because you were scared shit, then I dated Robby, that weird woodshop teacher who is also Jess's cousin who also wouldn't even let me get to third base -"

"He's related to Jess, duh," Schmidt interrupts.

"Then you dated a bunch of people to get over the fact that you were an  _idiot_ , and now we're both single, but that's not my fault because you were dating a politician."

"She wasn't celebrity enough for me," he says, biting the inside of his cheek, and then he feels Cece's gaze on him. "Fine, it's because she wasn't you, okay?"

"Okay." She reaches over him again, this time for a buttered roll, but instead of putting it onto her plate, she smears it right in his face. "That's for the fucking haiku."

—

Jess cries for the first time all trip by the Mystery Novel Maze, and she doesn't even know  _why_. Well... okay. She's been a teacher for awhile now, and she's convinced herself it's her life calling - teaching, singing catchy songs with middle schoolers, the whole nine yards. She doesn't even remember _not_ being a teacher, at this point. But she just turned thirty, she's still making whatever-nonsense-salary-middle-school-teachers-make a year, she's still single after going through the roster of semi-good-looking teachers at this school, and nothing. Call it a crisis in the middle of the best damn conference California has ever seen,  _whatever_. It's still record-breaking for Jess because usually she'd be freaking out within the first two hours of day one.

"Hey."

Jess looks up at Nick and he's licking his lips. "What are you looking at me like that for, you weirdo."

"I just finished eating my third helping of Bookworm Brunch. Did you have those cookies?"

Jess widens her eyes and shakes her head 'no'. "There were cookies?!"

"Tons of 'em. I snuck you back like, ten."

Jess laughs and watches Nick unfold a bunch of sugar cookies from his crumb-filled flannel. 

"But... you can only have 'em if you tell me why the hell you're crying in a maze."

"Well, I wasn't exactly  _in_ the maze. I didn't know the secret password." She sniffles, and Nick scoots a little closer to her. "I don't know why I'm upset. Well, I do, but it's a really stupid reason and I'm not about to use the gym teacher as my therapist."

"Is it because that dress you're wearing looks like you got it from one of the student's closets?"

Jess narrows her eyes at him. "Not helping,  _gym teacher_."

"That doesn't help either, Polka Dots."

"Look, life sucks after you turn thirty," she says. "It sucks before then too, but it really sucks when - when you're just used to your career and you're not even sure you're good at it; when you go to sleep alone every single night; when the animal shelter won't even approve you for a cat because you fed them cookies  _two times_."

"Cats are gross. Get a turtle!"

"No. You look like a turtle. I can't come home to something that looks like you every night."

Nick frowns and throws one of Jess's cookies on the floor. "Not cool, Day. You think I'm ugly?"

She shakes her head to let him know that no, he's not ugly, he's probably just a piece of shit. "You're just grumpy. So are turtles. They make these grumpy little faces. You kind of make that face, too."

At least she isn't crying anymore?

"Look." He lifts one of the cookies to his mouth and takes a bite, and then talks with his mouth all full, and ignores Jess rolling her eyes at that. "Sorry. Am I gross?"

She nods silently but steals a sugar cookie out of his lap. Just two weirdos, eating stolen sugar cookies against a maze filled with prepubescent brats. 

"You're fine, Jess. You're just one of those people that overthinks  _every thing_. Like, 'am I wearing cool enough socks today'?", he says, in his best Jess voice.

She slips off her flats and shows him her  _Harry Potter_ themed socks, the word 'MUGGLE' across the toes. "I never ask myself that, Nick."

"Okay, but you ask yourself a lot of other dumb questions. You think you're not a good teacher, Jess? Or that you're just done with the dating world and you'll never have a cat?"

She nods. "I'm highly allergic, anyway."

Nick tries not to laugh, so he makes a dumb comment instead. "To cats, or dudes?"

"Both."

—

"I asked Miller for advice before. Kind of. I don't know."

Cece widens her eyes and sets down the pamphlet she's pretending to read with one of her Spanish students. 

"I was crying in the bushes by the maze -"

Cece levels a hand at Jess. "Typical."

"And he just came over and started talking to me, and then I started rambling, and then it got deep, but then he told me to buy a freakin' turtle, and he made fun of my socks and..."

"Wait." Cece sits up a little in her chair and leans into Jess. "Why do we care about Nick? I just use his lips to get Schmidt jealous, remember?"

"That was one time, Ceec," Jess clarifies. "And I - I don't care about Nick, I guess I just thought he was more than the gym teacher for a second."

"Look, babe, if you want advice, just ask Winston. Winston's my go-to."

"And that's why your life is so screwed up." Jess catches Cece's reaction to that and quickly apologizes, but adds, "Well, when you broke up with Schmidt he told you to get a tramp stamp of another guy's name and you almost did!"

"Yeah,  _Rumpelstiltskin_ didn't really fit there, soooo..."

"I didn't want his advice. He was just there, and he made me forget how upset I was for a little bit, that's all."

"Well, you know what'll also do that? That stupid Dead Poets Garden you've been talking about since last week."

So Jess takes a breath and forgets about Nick Miller and his horrible advice and grabs the pamphlet Cece's holding.

"Ew. This is wet."

"That fat ginger from my Spanish class spilled it in Poe's Pond. Just go, get your mind off of everything in a cute little garden with weird, dead guys."

—

"Hey, kid."

Jess is holding a wet itinerary in her hands, and Nick doesn't ask. It looks like she's headed to the Dead Poets Garden, though. 

"Our birthdays aren't even four months apart, don't call me  _kid_ , grumpy adult."

"Look." He's pocketing both of his hands, and he's trying not to get distracted by how enthusiastic this chick looks on her way to a garden inspired by dead authors while holding a pamphlet he's pretty sure has a teenage boy's urine, or something, on it. And, well,  _hot_. He's tried to convince himself in her head that she's not all that, but it's not working too well. "I should've given you better advice before. Actually, I didn't give you any advice besides, 'Buy a turtle'."

"I remember. Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just running late to my next activity."

"I - I know. The Dead Poets Garden. I was headed there too."

"I'm sure, Nick. Name a dead poet."

"'Dead'? I don't know. But 'creepy and weird'? All of them."

Jess laughs, her head titled back. "You didn't have to come and find me because you felt bad about me crying by the maze. I don't even know why I was crying."

Nick shakes his head and touches her, his hand right on her shoulder. "Sometimes I cry for no reason too. Usually after a ton of beer, but. Jess, you've got a ton going for you. You're cooler than you give yourself credit for, and you're a good teacher, and I'm sure every shitty relationship you had was their fault."

"Ha. Maybe. Except Paul Genzlinger."

"The music teacher? You guys dated?"

Jess nods shamefully. "For a few months. He told me he loved me on Christmas Eve and my response was: "I'm moving to Germany,  _guten tag_!"."

"I don't care about your weird ex-boyfriends, Jess. I just came over here to tell you that most guys are jokes, but you aren't. Neither is your career or your love for weird ass socks."

"Th...anks?"

He nods. "You're welcome. Let's go to the Weird Old Dead Guys thing, huh?"

— 

**'WHEN HE LOOKED AT JESSICA, HE KNEW ONE THING: HE'D STOP AT NO COST TO MAKE SURE THE END OF EACH AND EVERY DAY WAS SPENT COMING HOME TO HER.'**

He writes that one in his notepad on his phone during a poem at the Dead Poets Garden; a poem he's ignoring and Jess is swaying along to with passion, her eyes sparkling at every pause, her hands clasped together.

**'WORK FOR IT, PEPPERWOOD. WORK FOR IT EVERY DAY AND NEVER STOP.'**


	4. FOUR.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3, and my favorite chapter yet!!
> 
> This chapter includes: The return of my favorite Jessica Day Ex-Boyfriend, Schmidt checking up on his 'babies', and A Nick Miller Gesture.
> 
> If you liked reading this as much as I liked creating it, let me know!
> 
> :)

Pepperwood doesn't even know how to start 'working for it'.

Until day three.

—

He's paired with Cece during the Sylvia Plath Scavenger Hunt. Nick knows nothing about Sylvia Plath aside from her suicide; she stuck her head inside of her oven. Kind of bad ass, kind of creepy. 

"Bell - Jar! Bell Jar!" He watches Jess excitedly point to this old, disheveled bell to her left, and then this jar to her right, and the girl looks like she just cured cancer, she's so proud of herself. Her partner, Aly, high fives her and makes a check mark with her finger in the air. 

"You sure do know a lot about dead writers, man," he hears Aly tells Jess.

Nick looks at Cece and tilts his head. "I saw that jar too, so..."

"Just let her have it, okay?" Cece advises, stepping away from the Bell Jar action and taking a seat by this fountain. "She's the only person I know who genuinely cares about this shit."

Nick puffs his cheeks out and joins Cece by the fountain, folding his hands in his lap. "This trip fucking sucks. I miss my cat."

"You have a cat?", she asks, eyes narrowed at him like he's full of shit. Does he not look like a cat person?

"Yeah, well - No, I don't. He's just like, this stray that hangs out in front of the bar I'm always at. I named him Nibbles."

" _Why_ _?_ "

"He chewed one of Schmidt's nipples this one time. Left him real scarred."

"I've seen Schmidt's bare ass, remember? He doesn't have any scars."

" _Emotionally_ , Cecelia."

"Ohh."

No one says anything for a minute, and then Cece goes, "Why are you staring at her like that?"

Nick shakes his head and feels his face get hot. "At who like what?"

" _Miller._  Don't play dumb." Cece nods her head over to Jess. 

"Oh, Aly? I don't know, because she got kind of hot? Maybe it's the whole Winston thing; ever since those two started doing it she really took time to fill in her eyebrows wonderfully."

"One: It's scary that you know anything about women at all, but you  _are_  Schmidt's side chick, so... And two: Jess. You're staring at my best friend and you bit your lip when she fixed her bra strap just now."

Nick is in the middle of biting his lip and Cece goes, "See?!" and then he stops himself. 

"What happened, you guys share a twin bed last night because your room got a little chilly?", she mocks, poking Nick in the side.

"If you say anything I'll look at your nudes on Schmidt's phone again."

Cece holds out her pinky because she's a twelve-year-old, apparently, but then she pulls it away when she catches what Nick just said. " _Again?!_  You've seen me naked before?"

"Plenty of times," he says nonchalantly, "and I'm not even weirded out by your different-sized areolas. We've all got problem areas, honey."

"Don't call me 'honey', and don't cry when I cut Schmidt's dick off for showing you those. Why does he still have them?! I deleted his when he started dating that Polly Pocket Politician."

"Yeah, well, Schmidt's still convinced you're going to marry him one day -- and you will, you just need time, and maybe a therapist, or something."

Cece rolls her eyes. " _You_  need to tell me what the hell is going on between you and Jess. If my best friend is getting dick, I  _really_  want to know about it."

"That's so creepy,  _why_? And she's not 'getting dick', not mine anyway. She barely talks to me." He presses his lips together and watches Cece stare at him. "What?"

" _Ohh_. You like her." Cece does this annoying little half-smile at him and if she weren't a half-decent person most of the time, he'd write her into his story as someone Pepperwood shoots dead at the crime scene, just for this moment. "Does she know?"

"Yeah, Cece, I asked her out on a date last night and now we're in love, we're just keeping it  _reaaal_  under wraps." Cece widens her eyes and Nick shakes his head. "No. Of course she doesn't know.  _I_  didn't even know until like, last night."

"Oh. Aww! That's kind of cute. I'd trust you more if you weren't friends with that pig I call my ex-boyfriend, but still."

"Did someone call me over?"

Cece shakes her head. "You heard the word 'pig' and just knew, huh?"

Schmidt shrugs and takes a seat smack dab in the middle between Cece and Nick, throwing an arm around both of them. "I think I belong here, you guys. Just me, solitude, and the oven Sylvia Plath stuck her head inside of."

"Oh yeah?", Cece asks. "Why don't you go see how it works?"

"You're so beautiful when you're mean to me, Cecelia," Schmidt replies.

She narrows her eyes at him and rips his hand off of her shoulder. "I hope you fall into Poe's Pond."

"I'll remember this moment when I'm writing our wedding vows."

Cece just flips him off and stands up, leaving him sitting alone with Nick. Her Schmidt Quota has been filled for the day, and it's only nine-something in the morning. She faces the both of them after she stands up and looks right at Nick. "We'll continue later."

"Continue  _what_...?" Schmidt asks suspiciously, looking between the two. "Did you guys make out?!"

"Yeah, we did, we were practicing for the next staff Christmas party," Cece responds. 

Schmidt gasps and holds a hand to his heart. "Ouch."

"Look, Romeo," she says, looking only at Nick, "don't screw it up. She can't be with another person who screws it up. It'll kill her."

—

He hasn't really seen Jess all day, and now it's almost six o'clock and he just really wants to talk to her once.

All that he's thinking about is that maybe Cece told her, and maybe it freaked her out, and maybe she really does think he smells like sweaty gym socks, or something.

He pops back into his hotel room, trying not to sweat anything, his notebook in hand. All he managed to get down in between the Sylvia Plath Scavenger Hunt and dinner was something about Pepperwood fighting off one of Knight's suitors, but then he forgot to add anything else because he was too busy wondering where Knight, in real life, was.

"Nick?"

Jess is sitting in bed with the covers all the way up to her neck, and Nick quickly drops his notebook onto his bed and walks over to her. "Are you dying?"

"Kind of. I'm embarrassed. This is what I do when I'm embarrassed. Now please go away and forget about me. I'm probably changing my name. How about 'Ethel'? Hmm, no. 'Bertie'?"

"What the hell could you possibly be embarrassed about  _here_? These are your people, Jessica." She shakes her head. "No, for real. I'm pretty sure one of the kids drew a picture of you wearing a sash that said, ' **QUEEN OF SOCALYALCON** ' on it."

"I embarrassed myself in front of -- Okay, do you promise to keep your stupid turtle face shut?"

Nick tries not to feel self-conscious and shrugs. "Depends how much of a fool the story makes you look like." 

"I accidentally read a page from my, uh... personal writings out loud today."

Nick laughs. "How deep can they possibly be? ' _Hi, I'm Jessica and I_ loooooooooove  _to knit, sing songs in big circles of people and skipping in meadows!_ '"

"I will kill you," she threatens, pointing her index finger at him. "I might've read an erotic fantasy about me and Mr. Sweeney. In front of Mr. Sweeney."

Nick kind of knows Mr. Sweeney. He's one of the more popular social studies teachers, because he's over six-feet-tall, he quit his job at a hospital to teach bratty children, and he openly admits his love for Selena Gomez songs. 

"I didn't know you were into that," Nick says, rubbing his lips together. He's trying to mask the fact that he's kind of pissed-slash-disappointed-slash- _whatever, I probably shouldn't screw this chick up more than she already is anyway_. "I feel like you go for the underdogs." 

"Paul wasn't an underdog, he was hot!"

"Not hot enough to not go to Germany for," Nick reminds her of her _Guten Tag, Paul!_ story and she visibly hates him right now.

"Look." She pulls the covers down to her waist. "I'm not going to read my erotic story to you, because you're a thirteen-year-old boy in an old man's body --"

"Hey! I'm not that out of shape, I just drink beer sometimes."

"But it was embarrassing, and the four times Mr. Sweeney and I interacted before today will never be more than that: four. I hope you're happy."

Um, well, not exactly. " _Me?!_  I didn't take your notebook at write creepy porn about the gay social studies teacher."

"He's not gay."

"Selena Gomez? Come on, Jessica. Look past the fact that he's eleven-feet-tall and get a grip."

"He has a passion for talent," Jess defends, and then she gets all upset again. "Wait, why am I even defending him? It's not like we'll ever get married and have beautiful blue-green-eyed lanky children now, right?"

"I think his eyes are brown, Jess," Nick corrects her.

"I never got close enough to look, and now I never will. I just want to go home, Nick."

—

"What were you and Nick supposed to 'continue' later?" Schmidt looks at his watch, cornering Cece. "It's later, Cecelia."

"I'll only tell you if you delete my nude pictures off of your phone."

"How did you --"

"Miller. Stop showing him my tits, Schmidt! He described my areolas in strangely accurate detail."

"Ahh. My babies. My sweet, sweet babies." Schmidt grins, his eyes right on Cece's chest. "How are they? Are they eating enough? Being paid attention to? Would you say they are...well... _growing up_  right before your eyes?"

"I'm still a full D, and you're still a full D too, you dickhead." She flicks him on the bicep and leans into him. "I was actually giving your best friend relationship advice," she says proudly, because it sounds like she actually has her shit together, for once. (She doesn't.)

"Wait, you were  _what_?! Why the hell didn't he come to me?! Are we not bros anymore? I WILL KILL MYSELF IN POE'S POND, I WILL!", he yells suddenly, ever the dramatic.

"Your last relationship was with someone who dumped you in an underwear store. I think he trusts me more. Deal with it."

"You can't be friends with Nick, Cece. I vent to him too much about you."

"Well I can't have a Facebook either, then, because your vent-y statuses are public, and they're creepy and weird. Stop talking about me in unfitting song lyrics, Schmidt."

"Fleetwood Mac's  _Go Your Own Way_  was actually used in reference to my mom's friend, Susan, so..."

"Your mom's  _girl_ friend, Susan? She's not going her own way, honey, she's been around since you were in diapers."

"I was sev -- Wait, you're just being mean again, right?"

"You shouldn't have told me you wet the bed until you were sixteen, Schmidt!"

"You shouldn't have told me anything about you either, Cece! Now all I do is think about all of the Cece Knowledge I know, and I'm going to be walking around with it until I die. Unless I get into some almost-fatal crash where I lose a very specific year-gap of memory." He looks up and puts his hands together. "Please, God, strike me almost-dead!"

"Stop being dramatic and I'll tell you what Nick and I were talking about."

Suddenly, Schmidt perks up and he's fine. 

"He likes Jess."

"Well, I like Jess too, Cece. She's crafty, she knits the entire Coolidge staff stockings during Hanukkah, and she was the only teacher who had an apron in her classroom the day I sat in chocolate cake and it looked like I pooped myself. Granted, the apron said ' **WHIP IT REAL GOOD** ' on it, but it was still an apron."

"You're an idiot. He has feelings for her, Schmidt. He just figured it out, but he can't stop staring at her. I caught him today."

"Was he doing that thing where he like... drools at the corner of his mouth and looks like a stray puppy?", he asks, swiping his index finger by his lip for visual.

"I guess? I don't really look at him, and I don't know if Jess does, either. But I  _do_  know Jess, and if I tell her someone was even thinking about like, holding the door open for her two weeks from now, she'd fall in love with them."

"What if she likes him back, though? Nicholas is a very likable man, when he showers regularly!"

"Ew. I don't know," Cece says, taking a breath, "but I just need to butt out and let her figure that out for herself. Every time I intervene, I feel guilty when she gets her heart broken."

"It's not your fault Jess dates The Real Clowns of Los Angeles, Cece."

"No, but it's getting real tiring holding her hand after another breakup going, ' _Next one, next one'_ , and then the next one is a little shithead too."

Neither of them say anything for a minute, until Schmidt realizes they're on their own, that everyone else left dinner over a half hour ago. 

"Want to forget about Nick and Jess for a little bit?", he offers, but he sets himself up for her rejecting it.

"Kind of." She shrugs, and then she has both hands behind her back, fidgeting with something.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Taking off my bra. Let's go do it in the Dead Poet's Garden."

—

Jess has been cooped up in their hotel room dying of eternal embarrassment for four hours now, and even though it's past their curfew, Nick gets his hands on a few fancy-ish candles from yesterday's 'Ku Circle, a half-empty bottle of champagne, and some mixed nuts from the hotel room.

"Jess." He shout-whispers, because she might be asleep.

She's not. "What are you holding?" She leans over to her nightstand and grabs her glasses. "Oh. Alcohol. Gimme!"

"Only if you come with me," he says, nodding behind him.  

So she does. She gets her ass out of bed, ignores the fact that it's windy and she's only wearing a cheap hotel robe over her pajama set, and she lets Nick pour her a glass of champagne on the rooftop, despite her totally rational fear of heights.

"Cheers!", he says, clinking her glass with his own. "I don't drink champagne normally, but I couldn't find beer."

Jess smiles into her glass and then looks at Nick for what feels like an entire hour to him. "What's this for? Did you clog the toilet back at the room or something?"

He's hands deep in the mixed nuts when she asks him that, and he just shakes his head. "We all do embarrassing shit, Jess. I've written some intense erotica before too, you know."

She laughs, her head titled back. "About who,  _Schmidt?_ "

"Not exactly. Paula Abdul, but please don't laugh at me."

"I'm really trying," Jess says. "You didn't have to put together a 'You Screwed Up' party for me on the roof, Miller. I would've gotten over it tomorrow."

"Jess."

"Fine, tomorrow from next year on this exact date, tomorrow, but still."

Nick raises his champagne glass up to her. "To forgetting about the gay social studies teacher who'd probably only be interested in dating Principal Foster anyway!"

"He's. Not. Gay."

"Maybe it wasn't meant to be, you know? Maybe you were supposed to read your embarrassing Sam Sweeney erotica in front of Sam Sweeney so he could be warned about how crazy you are before he tried anything."

"I hate you, first of all," she says while gesturing for Nick to pass the mixed nuts, "but second of all, this is the most fun I've had all trip. No one's done something this nice for me in a long time, aside from like, my cousin Robby, but he always packs the terrible trail mix."

Nick salutes her jokingly, ignoring the fact that his insides are burning because he's alone on the roof with Jessica Knight, the girl of Pepperwood's wildest dreams. "I'll do it for you every time you accidentally read an erotic story out loud and totally embarrass yourself."

"So then I will happily enjoy this  _one time_  up here on the roof with you, drinking this horrible champagne and eating expired nuts while my butt freezes on concrete and my fear of heights is at an all-time high."

"Deal."


End file.
